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What Next - Why We Have to Take RFK Jr. Seriously

Slate News

Slate Podcasts

News Commentary, Politics, News

4.56K Ratings

🗓️ 28 June 2023

⏱️ 23 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s politics, such as they can be parsed, are a mix of conspiracy theories and vibes. But in a post-Trump landscape, and with RFK polling at 20 percent among Democratic presidential candidates, cranky contrarians have to be taken seriously—right?


Guest: Vera Bergengruen, investigative correspondent at Time magazine.


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Transcript

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0:00.0

Time Magazine's Vera Bergen Groen says, if you want to understand Robert F. Kennedy's

0:12.1

bid for president, a good place to start is by searching his campaign hashtag.

0:18.4

It's RFK 2024 and it's weird.

0:25.4

It truly is the most confusing hashtag on the internet.

0:29.5

And I know that's a tall claim.

0:33.5

You go on it and it's got these kind of far right, you know, bros who are really big fans

0:39.8

of RFK.

0:40.8

You know, they think he would be the fittest presidential candidate ever.

0:44.6

They find photos of him with Falcons because he's a falconer.

0:47.8

It's got just people who are kind of nostalgic, you know, retirees who are talking about the

0:52.6

time that they saw his uncle or his dad at a rally.

0:55.7

So it's got the strangest mix of people who seem to be liking different parts of him and

1:01.0

confused by other parts of RFK junior.

1:11.9

Confused is where a lot of outsiders start when they try to understand RFK junior.

1:17.4

You might begin by knowing the basics that his uncle was president, John F. Kennedy, and

1:21.5

his dad was the president's brother and right hand man.

1:25.5

Then you might figure out RFK is an environmental activist and lawyer and yes, he does train Falcons.

1:32.2

But pretty quickly you'll get to the stranger stuff.

1:34.8

Like how Bobby Kennedy, as many people call him, has become a vaccine skeptic.

1:39.9

One of the most influential out there actually.

1:42.5

Virigat an up close glimpse at the candidate and his fan base a little more than a year ago.

1:47.9

You know, I've covered online movements for a very long time.

...

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